Social Democracy Is Dying

Posted by Mark Latham on March 28, 2017

Social democracy is dying.

Like a scene from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, left-of-centre MPs and activists are now practicing the type of politics they had previously denounced: a divisive, segregationist brand of identity fascism.

All our hopes for people working together – the social democratic dream of a community rich in social capital – are crumbling.

Today’s Labor/Green orthodoxy is to turn people against each other on the basis of their gender, race and sexuality.

Left-feminists like Tracey Spicer and Kasey Edwards are actively segregating women from males: refusing to let their daughters sit next to men on planes or to be supervised by men on play-days.

Under the guise of “diversity”, the ABC has promoted Islamic supremacists on its roster, while refusing to report on segregationist practices in places like Punchbowl Boys High.

The national broadcaster is running a protection racket for radical Islam.

Within the gay lobby, a militant tendency has also emerged, using boycotts and intimidatory tactics to censor anyone who disagrees with them.

The group that, more than any other in Australian politics, has pleaded with people to respect “difference” has become intolerant of differing points of view.

I despair for what our nation has become.

Barely a day goes by without someone stopping me on the street to say, “Mark, what’s happening to Australia? We’ve made people from all over the world welcome here but now, because of my skin colour and my sex, I’m being made to feel unwelcome.”

The fed-up majority feels like an alien virus has been injected into our way of life.

They see their country being lost to the madness of political correctness and Leftist social engineering.

And while the Greens and Labor egg on this process, Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition are too weak to stop it.

Or perhaps Turnbull actually believes in the madness.

Unfortunately, the one politician seen as gutsy enough to make a stand, Pauline Hanson, is also viewed as ineffective.

She’s not articulate or savvy enough on policy matters to get the job done.

When the voters were looking for a culture war champion in the Western Australian election campaign, poor old Pauline was tangled up on vaccines and Vladimir Putin.

In the nation’s parliament, we are a nation without leadership.

The consequences in the community are horrendous, with a build-up of social distrust and identity resentment.

Instead of encouraging people to cross gender, racial and sexuality boundaries and find common cause with their fellow citizens, the Left is encouraging separatism.

So-called safe spaces in our universities (such as the Aborigine-only computer room at the Queensland University of Technology that provoked the recent 18C controversy) are harming the prospects of Indigenous reconciliation.

How can students get to know each other and build trust across racial boundaries if white kids are kicked out of computer labs solely because of the colour of their skin?

Similarly, multiculturalism is under threat due to the rise of “cultural appropriation” theories.

Prominent Leftists now argue that white authors should not be writing about black people in their novels, that Australians of a European background should not be eating Asian food – that no one should “appropriate” the habits and customs of another culture.

Yet the essence of Australian multiculturalism is for people to value their own heritage, while also embracing the things they appreciate about other cultures – a vibrant mix of the best of the world’s civilisations.

Thus identity politics has firmed up into a new fundamentalist narrative.

Meanwhile, the ABC presenter Yassim Abdel-Magied has attacked her hometown of Brisbane for being as “white as f**k”.

Not surprisingly, Dastyari has praised Abdel-Magied as a model Muslim, “a thoughtful and intelligent young Australian”.

In suburban and regional Australia, the rise of anti-white racism has fuelled a growing backlash.

People who work hard and do the right thing in their family and community lives feel under siege for no other reason than being white, male and straight.

Quite legitimately, they are saying: “Our tolerance to minorities is being repaid with bigotry and censorship, so why should I be so generous in the future?”

Let me give another example of how bad things have become.

This Friday I was due to speak at a Labor fundraising event in Smithfield in Western Sydney, taking as my theme the contents of this column.

In front of an audience including the NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley, I hoped to persuade people of how identity fascism is killing off the good society, setting back multiculturalism and reconciliation.

But then the Left faction, led by Rainbow Labor and the Sussex Street censor Rose Jackson, rubbed me off the speakers’ list.

None of them were even going to the function. They wanted to run it by remote control, not trusting anyone from Smithfield to make up their own mind about my speech.